“Battlestar Galactica” creator Ronald D. Moore said he knew almost instantly that his reboot of the late-1970s sci-fi franchise was blossoming into something unique and memorable.

Speaking at the fifth annual Hero Complex Film Festival over the weekend, Moore described watching the first footage from shooting, and knowing then that he and the cast of the show were on the cusp of crafting something important.

“I put in the tapes, and it took my breath away,” Moore said last week. “It was so much better than the script… I remember at that moment literally feeling like … ‘Look how beautiful this is.'”

Taking place at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres, the Hero Complex Film Festival kicked off a weekend of programming with a free fan event celebrating “Battlestar Galactica,” which also featured a free screening of the 2003 “Battlestar Galactica” miniseries. The three-hour special rebooted the franchise and provided the foundation for the acclaimed 2004-09 program that chronicled the efforts of a band of survivors to find a new home planet after a devastating attack by a race of beings called Cylons nearly eradicated humanity.

During an extended intermission, Moore took the stage with stars Edward James Olmos, who played the venerable commander William Adama, actress Mary McDonnell, who played President Laura Roslin, and Jamie Bamber, who played Lee “Apollo” Adama, for an in-depth Q&A.

Olmos said from the stage that he had never seen the original series, but once he sat down to read Moore’s script, he was surprised by the complexity of what was on the page.

“From the very first preamble, the three pages that set the tone of the piece … it told you how to read it,” Olmos said. “From the reading of the script, I said, ‘Holy mackerel, this is serious.'”

Watch the clip above to hear what else Moore and the actors had to say, and look for more video from this conversation and others from the weekend soon.